


Can You Hear My Voice?

by XavierLensherr



Series: Dreaming Out Loud [2]
Category: X-Men, X-Men: First Class - Fandom
Genre: Cherik - Freeform, Dark!Charles, M/M, slightly dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1525151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XavierLensherr/pseuds/XavierLensherr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles must learn to use his telepathy again after being locked away in a mental asylum for most of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear things up: Charles is 24, Raven is 26 and Erik is 29. Also Charles (as you would expect) is suffering from trauma.

_I'll sing it one last time for you_

_Then we really have to go_

_You've been the only thing that's right_

_In all I've done – Snow Patrol_

***

My name is Charles Xavier. I’m 24 years old. Raven is my sister. Erik is my friend. Both my parents are dead. I’m not crazy. I’m just a mutant.

Charles stares at the reflection in the mirror of the bathroom. His skin is pale and sunken in from the years in the hospital. The only feature he finds attractive on his face are his eyes. They’re big and a brilliant shade of blue, but their lost as well. The years at the hands of the doctors and nurses had paid their toll. Charles is a broken man. He doesn’t know which way is up or down, and sometimes he can’t tell what was real and what was a dream.

Dreams of empty hallways and sterile rooms plagued him most nights. He knows that both Raven and Erik know about them. They don’t talk about it, but he knows. He’s still getting used to the fact that he wasn’t crazy like he’d been told his whole life, but he was just a mutant. A mutant whose powers was to control and read minds.

He closed his eyes and reach out for Raven’s bright mind downstairs, she was making dinner. Erik’s mind is strong like a fortress, it was nowhere to be found. It made sense though, Erik had gone away again. Erik, Charles knew little about the man. Other than the fact that he could control metal and he smelled of freshly ground coffee with a hint of nutmeg, copper and sometimes of gun oil.

Charles guessed that he probably had plenty of his own daemons to deal with. That’s why he was gone so often. Charles understood but it didn’t mean he didn’t miss Erik. Charles enjoyed their games in his father’s old study. It made him feel normal for once in his life.

_Charles!Dinner’sready_

Ravens thoughts echoed throughout his head. He closed his eyes and concentrated on sending his thoughts back.

_Comingraven_

He glanced back at the mirror. At his pale, sunken face and blue, lost eyes. He wonders if things will ever be normal.

* * *

 

_The corridors seem to go on forever. The doctors drag him along. They promise it all be over soon. They place in on the table, strap down his arms and legs. They place the rubber gag inside his mouth. They promise it won’t hurt. They promised so many things and they break every word. They turn the machine on. Pumping the electricity into his head. The voices start to scream, so does he._

* * *

 

Charles wakes up screaming. Raven rushes to his side trying to calm her brother down.

_Charles!Charles!wakeup!It’sonlyadreamcharles!_

She projects over and over hoping her brother will stop screaming. Finally he does, but it not Raven’s efforts that have succeeded. It’s Erik’s.

The needle drops to the floor and Erik walks out of the room. Hair and clothes soaking from the rain outside.

Raven strokes her brother’s hair, tears are streaming down her cheeks. She should have never left in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

_Light up, light up_

_As if you have a choice_

_Even if you cannot hear my voice_

_I'll be right beside you dear – Snow Patrol_

***

**10 years earlier**

Raven looks up at the Mansion. She won’t be gone long. She’s sure Charles can handle himself till she comes back. She only be gone a month at the most, if he just keeps his walls up she’s sure he’ll be fine. She knows it’s wrong for her to leave without telling him goodbye, but the less Charles knows the better it is.

She turns her back on the mansion, on Charles. She promises herself when she finds this other mutant, Erik Lensherr, she’ll come back for Charles.

Then he’ll never have to be afraid again.

* * *

 

**Present day**

The sedation doesn’t wear off till mid-day, but Raven still stays by Charles’s side.

Charles’s brilliant blue eyes flutter open, confused and lost.

“Where am I? Who are you?” he asks, panic seeping into his voice.

“Shhh. Your safe, your home Charles. I’m your sister, Raven.” She has to hold back the tears in her eyes.

“Your safe, it’s alright”, she whispers until he falls asleep again.

She lets the tears fall from her eyes. Raven doesn’t know how much more she can take of this.

* * *

 

Charles opens his eyes, he head feels like straw.

He can hear shouting downstairs. He smiles, it means that Erik’s home.

He barely clambers out of his bed. Grabbing the wall for support, he makes into the kitchen to see an angry Raven shouting at and even angrier Erik.

“Erik! I can’t handle this anymore! I don’t know how to handle things when your gone. You know what happened last night, what if you weren’t there?”

“You would have been fine.”

“No, enough is enough Erik. He’s got trauma. You can’t just disappear when you feel like it. He needs both of us! ”  

The smile drops from Charles face. They’re talking about him.

_Noi’msosorryimanuisancewhyamIhereohgodnomorefightingpleasecan’thanndleitno!_

He runs out of the kitchen, tears falling from his eyes.

* * *

 

Erik finds Charles half an hour later in his father’s study. The case which contains the whiskey had been opened. Charles is curled up in his favourite armchair, a glass tumbler in his hand and is promptly semi-unconscious.

Erik scoops Charles up in his arms and takes him to his bed.

“Mmmm…Erik”

“Charles, your drunk. Go to sleep.”

He turns around to leave.

“Don’t leave Erik, please don’t leave.”

He looks back at Charles, his blue eyes are fixed on him. He stays, but only for this night.


	3. Chapter 3

_Louder, louder_

_And we'll run for our lives_

_I can hardly speak I understand_

_Why you can't raise your voice to say – Snow Patrol_

***

**20 years earlier**

Erik watches as the needle pierces his skin.

_214782_

That’s all he is now. A number.

Shaw had finally destroyed what little was left of him. It had started with being ripped from his home. Being forced to walk down the streets of Warsaw, with the Star of David sown onto his clothes. Being loaded onto a train like cattle and taken to Auschwitz. Were he was separated from his parents. Were he was forced to watch his mother die.

He promised to himself. When he escaped, and he would. Shaw would die.

* * *

**Present Day**

Charles rested his head in Ravens lap, while she read to him in his father’s study. After the incident in the kitchen the other day, the case containing the whiskey was firmly shut. With only Raven knowing where the key was hidden. She didn’t want her brother turning to alcohol. Erik wasn’t too happy about it.

_“Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his tw_ o companions.”

The words flowed out of Ravens mouth like a bubbling brook. Weaving in and out of Charles’s head. He wrapped himself in her thoughts, letting her mind wash over him.

“Raven,”

She stopped reading and looked down out her brother. His blue eyes stared into hers.

“Yes, Charles?”

“Is Erik going to stay?”

She paused. She didn’t quite know what to say.

“I don’t know, you have to ask him,” her cheeks flashed a hint of red with anger.

“Raven, am I going to be alright? I heard you talking about me in the kitchen.”

She paused again, hesitant to answer her brother’s question.

“I don’t know Charles. The things they did to you, I don’t know where to even begin,” the tears started to roll down her cheeks, “the best I can think off is taking you to see an old friend of mine that’s a doctor-”

The minute she mentioned it, Charles fell off the couch and starts to shake.

_nonononononononono_

“Charles?”

_pleasenononnomoredoctorsnonopleaseno_

“Shit! I shouldn’t have said anything. Charles its okay,” She grabbed Charles’s shaking hands but he pulls away.

_nononopleasewhyareyousendingmeawaytrustgonegonenonopleaseno_

Charles has gone. Tears are streaming down his face. The stranger has appeared.

“Charles! Shit why did I have to mention Hank? I should of have known.”

Raven crouches down to his level and cradles him in her arms.

_whereamIwhoamIwhyscaredmotherwouldunderstandwhyamIherewhyissheherewhoisshe_

She grabs a sedation needle from the case she keeps in her jacket since the night Erik came back, and presses it against Charles’s skin. He goes slack in her arms.

* * *

 

 She calls for Erik and he carries Charles back into his room. She stares at her baby brother, nestled under the covers in a drug seduced sleep.

_How did it ever get to this?_ She thinks to herself.

She grabs her phone and calls Hank.


End file.
